BIG BROTHER BILL and the BAIRNS

Evening Star, Issue 21500, 26 August 1933, Page 5

BIG BROTHER BILL and the BAIRNS

GIVE TO THE WORLD THE BEST THAT YOU HAVE, AND THE BEST WILL COME BACK TO YOU The winners of the competitions published on August 12 are Keith Morris, 224 Oxford street, winner of No. 2, and S. Johnson, 6 Scott street, St. Kilda. THE COMPETITION By special request Brother Bill gives a word-making puzzle this week for all the bairns. It is not a hard one. See how many words can be made out of the two words “ TERM HOLIDAYS.” Writ© your age at the top of, the first sheet of paper, also your name and address. The usual prizes will be awarded. One shilling to the most successful bairn under ten years of age, and one shilling and sixpence to the most successful bairn of ten years and over. Send your replies to Big Brother Bill, care ‘ Evening Star ’ Newspaper, Stuart street, Dunedin. ..Mark the envelope “ Competition.” THE POSTIE’S BAG 32 Carlyle street, North-east Valley, DunedinV June 26, 1933. Dear Big Brother Bill, —This is the second time that I have written to you. We haven’t a wireless, but I enjoy your columns in the ‘ Star ’ every Saturday night. We have a. little kitten called Paddy. It doesn’t go out of our place to play with other cats. 1 go to the Christian Brothers’ High School. I am m Standard V. I’ve two sisters. One is Josephine, who 'is eight years old, and the other is Kathleen, who is six years old. I have sent in for the competition. I send my love to all the aunts and uncles.—Yours sincerely, Frank O’Driscoll. [Many thanks for your letter,' Frank O’Driscoll, ißrother Bill was glad to, get your second letter. Do Josephine and Kathleen wish to join the family? They will like to; see their names in print, anyway. Perhaps one day they will write Brother Bill a letter for themselves. You did not win the competition, but you must try again another time. There is always a win waiting for the fellow who keeps on tryiny. Write again soon.] ■ 67 .Cargill street, August 1, 1933. Dear Big Brother Bill,—l am writing for ilie first time. I have left school, hut. 1 hope to go back next year. School is very much nicer when one is not there, don’t you think so? Well, 1 must close now.—l remain, yours sincerely, Enid Cockerell. [Many thanks for your letter, Enid Cockerell. You are welcome to the • Star ’ family. Your first letter is a short one, but there will be other things that’ yon will find to write about later, and your name may appear in the honour square for an interesting letter. It is true that things become more valuable when we have to do without them. For example, bread and butter is a very common thing, isn’t, it, but it would be a rather sa,d business if we were compelled to do without it. .Perhaps school is the same. Not very interesting when we are compelled to be there; but we come to wish that school days were back again when we have them no longer. Brother Bill hopes that you will like, school when you return.] 128 Musselburgh Rise, Dunedin July 9, 1933. Dear Big Brother Bill, —May 1 join your happy family ?. J am twelve years old and go to Forbury School. I have a cat, whose name is Micky. He is black and grey in colour, and has big yellow eyes. 1 love reading your page in Saturday night’s ‘Star.’ I have been in the North Island among the Maoris, and ,1 have also, been to the Bluff. I simply love going for holidays. 1 hope to see my letter published in the ‘ Star.’ I think 1 will

Hello Everybody

close now, because it is getting late.— I remain, Ngaire Donaldson. [You are very welcome to the family, Ngaire Donaldson. Brother Bill is glad to know that you like to read the columns. Most people like going for holidays, Ngaire, but you seem to have had some very nice ones. It must have been very interesting to spend your holidays among the Maori folk in the North Island; Brother Bill has done that, too, and came away with some very happy and interesting memories. Write again, soon.] 9 Erin street, Roslyn, Dunedin. June 17, 1933. Dear Big Brother Bill, —Often I have read your columns in the ‘Star,’ and have decided'to write to you and ask if I may join your happy band of children. I am ten years old, and in Standard V. at the Arthur Street School. During the recent snowfall my brother and I went for a walk with our sledges to Flagstaff in he hope of having a ride. On reaching the hih we found the snow thick enough to enjoy a good ride. After enjoying our selves we went to a very steep hill, where, on reaching the bottom, we noticed a sharp curve around which we went.. To our dismay, we noticed a few yards away a huge boulder. Haying to act quickly, we jumped off the sledge, as we could not stop it. That night we returned home, but without a sledge. I am entering for this week’s competition. Yours truly, James M'Coy. [Many thanks for your letter, James M'Coy. Your name is in the Honour Square for neat writing. You are welcome to the family. It is rather good for a fellow ten years old to be in the Fifth Standard at school. Tobogganing on the snow is an excellent game that Brother Bill used to, enjoy when he was Jim M'Coy’s age. There! was a very fine hill, called Leg o’ Mutton Hill, near his home, and the boys used to try their sledges every winter. It was all the more exciting when the sledge upset at the bottom because there was nothing but the soft snow to receive a. body. It would have been rather dangerous if your sledge had crashed into the boulder; it was a good thing that you saw it in time. Write again soon.], I Bawhiti street, Sunshine Dunedin. June 24, 1933. Dear Big Brother Bill, —I trust my solution of the puzzle is right, as I would like to win- the prize. It is ages since 1 have written to you, but I have seen you in the studio when 1 recited there. I am the little girl you. waved to one. day at Cavell street when I was coming home from school. Do you remember, Brother Bill? I went ■to the Winter Show and saw mjrhy interesting things, such, as embroidery (in which I; am.: very interested), hand-made rug's* .beautiful cakes, animals (including wonderful fleecy sheep, huge, bullocks, two cute little goats, and. a, lovely’ Shetland pony on which I would, have loved to ride), and movie pictures. This is all just now. Brother Bill. I will write you a longer letter next time.. I trust you are keeping, well. ;I send rny love to all the aunts,, uncles, 'and the big family, including yourself.—Your loving bairn, Zelda Morris., [Your name is in the honour, square, Zelda Morris. Brother Bill was glad to get your letter with its interesting account of. your visit to the Winter Show. There are some very beautiful things to be seen there, and some very nice embroidery, too, but Brother Bill does not know very much about that kind of thing, excepting that he can admire it. Brother Bill waves to a great many bairns who wave to him, and it is not easy* to remember a special one, but he does happen to remember that you came to recite, so that helps a little hit, doesn’t it? Brother Bill is keeping very well, and thanks Zelda Morris for her kind inquiries. Write again soon.]

FOUR KITTENS FARAWAY THE LONG WAY HOME When Tabby invited herself. to my tent one fine morning I could not refuse, her hospitality. She had been deserted by her Ooldea master, and I had taken little titbits to her as she sat watching and hoping on the roof of her deserted home. One day she followed me back to my tent. Tabby and I became great friends and used to go out, Walking together, Tabby learning her duties and restrictions very quickly. Afraid of the night on the plain and the wild bush creatures, she had her box-bed on my table at night, and there one morning she showed me four tiny tabby kittens. The kittens grew rapidly and loved their large playground inside my breakwind. Soon they were old enough to come out walking with me and their mother, Tabby trying to make them walk sedately beside us. The native children were allowed to hold the kittens and play with them, and at last' they begged me to let them take the kittens to camp, promising that they would look after them and protect them from the dogs. So I parted with my young friends, feeling sure they would be made much of by their new protectors. But I had forgotten the sudden urge of the Australian natives for roaming, and one morning I went to the camp and found that the whole group, including the kitteps, had gone eastward twenty miles away. Mother Tabby and 1 felt quite happy, knowing how fond the children were of the kittens, but a week or more after their departure their mother sat up ! suddenly and listened.- I listened, too, and we heard woeful wails coming from the east. Nearer and nearer, louder and louder came the wailing maiows, and presently one little kitten, then another and another and another came homing to my tent. All four had come back, weary and footsore and painfully thin, for the poor little creatures, only a few months old, had travelled twenty miles over the wild country and hills between Ooldea and Immarna Siding. With loud purrs they ate and drank; then Tabby licked them all over and probably had a long explanation from each of them. I was left to guess that in the excitemnt of changing camp the children had forgotten their charges, and so the kittens consulted together and worked out the idea that they must go back home again. There must have been some such agreement, for all four started on the journey back. Their little tracks were followed later by their' repentant owners, and it was found that they had returned by the same route as that taken by the natives to Immarna, including the many extra hills and slopes where the natives had spread out to hunt for rabbits, reptiles, and grubs, which they always do when travelling from place to place. When the kittens were rested they had to bo bathed and combed, and when they lay down on their bag mat, fluffy and clean and well fod, there were not four happier travellers in all Australia. HE WONDERED WHY His mother suddenly realised that the room was quiet, and looked up to see what he was “up to now.” He was three years and three,months old, and in all those three years and three months she had never known him to be still unless asleep. . But how he was only sitting on a footstool, lost in a day dream. The sun shone o: his golden hair, his round soft cheeks, and his great blue eyes. There was a radiance about the little solemn face that touched his mother with awe, and reminded her that heaven lies about us in our infancy. What thoughts, she wondered, were absorbing that innocent mind, filling those huge eyes with wonderment? Then he spoke. “ Muvver,” he said, “why ” She trembled: what tremendous question was she going to be asked to settle now? Already on other occasions he had asked her about good and evil, death and the afterwards, but always casually. The solemn thought that preceded this new question foreshadowed something that would search her philosophy even more profoundly. “ Why,” he asked, “ do you wash me every day?” A LONELY LAND Sir John Kirwan has been on a trip through the northern part of Western Australia. For days he went hundreds of miles without meeting anybody, and found it a vast lonely land. in an area five times the size of the British Isles there are only 7,000 Europeans and a few thousand aborigines; yet the land has-immense possibilities, and the few people are healthy and long-lived. They have their wireless sets, and do not feel at all isolated. Bird life was abundant and of extraordinary brilliancy. At a remote homestead a white woman was found to have an amazing influence over these -birds, which flew in and out of her kitchen at will. If she called they would settle on her. and did not mind being handled by her. If she were away they would fly to the door, and on seeing a stranger would retire to a tree and mope. Kangaroos are a nuisance. On many sheep stations they arc as numerous ns the sheep, cropping the grass so close that there is nothing left for the sheep. The first sight of an emu was when,a proud mother with eleven young ones crossed the road. Later Sir John saw hundreds of them. They, too, were a great post to the settlers. At a place called Nullagine wild camels were another source of trouble. There wore also wild-horses, wild goats, wild donkeys, and wild cattle. Sir John Kirwan sees a great future before this wide, empty land, which can take a population as largo as that of the British Isles.

THE DREAMER AWAKES A GOOD-NIGHT TALE Noel walked slowly down the path until lie reached the shaded patch at the end of the garden. On the lawn some distance off he could hear his brothers calling and shouting at tennis. How jolly they sounded; How could anyone feel like that, he wondered, when he had such a heavy heart. Of course they weren’t going to a completely new school to-morrow, as he was. If only ho could still have stayed here! Ho knew he had been a dayboy much longer than most boys, because he had been ill, but now he was stronger he was to go away. “ It will bring him out of himself,' he had heard a grown-up say. He lives too much in a world of dreams. That was a kind way of putting it. Noel knew what they meant; he was shy and awkward and silent in strange company. A voice across the garden was calling his name. “ Noel! Tea’s ready. Just one more look at the old pond with its deep water shadows cupped in green banks, a swift good-bye to the tangled copse near, and Noel was running toward the house to one more tea. It was one more everything today, one more teatime, one more bedtime, one more night! The next day was. radiant, and a sky, untouched by cloud, wore its bluest robe. Noel rather wished it had been gloomy and wet,' so that he could have left behind him a home not quite so alluring. . St. Andrews, the school, was out in the country, standing among gorseand heather, with here and there patches of pines; while walling the distant common were low. misty hills, and over and between them a silver line which was the sea. It was only after a tew days that Noel began to realise that while the other new boys were beginning to make friends already he was left alone ; and one day he overheard part of a conversation about himself. *, “ Noel Cartwright,” Lomax major was saying. ‘ ‘ That’s the new ( rabbit;, and about as much use as one.” : And then a kinder voice: Give mm a chance, Lomax. He has only been here a day or two. I was shy for ages when I was new.” Was it really true that he was no good? No, Noel suddenly made up ms mind that one day, somehow, he would show Lomax. , , . .. And them one never-to-be-forgotten day it happened. It was the first dav of cricket, and Noel remembered how his brothers used to tease him about his cricket because he would dream in the middle of a game. The other side batted hrst, and Noel was put to field. High over the cricket ground a small white cloud looked like a full-sailed ship drifting across the endless blue; two larks were rising and falling, and risin ® again, singing of the world s beauty. Above them an aeroplane, little and busv, sang its own song. „ “ Don’t look at these things, Noel told himself. “Keep your eye on the ' 3a ilut somehow the loveliness ot the dav was in Noel’s heart, and his dreams came crowding about him. He missed two easy catches and the ©the side got boundary after ■ boundary through his poor fielding. He seemed rust too late each time. Lomax, for Lomax was captain ot his side, changed his place on the field, but things weren t much better. “jolly g°°d 3°k * or US t match ” he remarked to Noel, m the Interval. “You’d have let us down nicely. Can’t you try ? ( ~ Noel turned scarlet. I do, . Sa And “thelT an’’’extraordinary thing happened. Noel heard the amophmo overhead and looked up. ,he m « n seemed to be doing unusual things. One moment he was swooping down, the next rising high “ nd T’™V? g p,° a \f But someone was shouting Play, and the bowler had sent him a ball, which he tapped low, nearly sending a catch into the slips. Hebokedat the sky again. “ Come on, the captain shouted. “We can’t wait all. cay for you to watch an aeroplane stunting. Think what you’re doing. But Noel could think of nothing but that airman. He felt that something was wrong. A ball was sent to him and he hit it in a dream. An over came, and once more he gazed up. Now he was sure, and flinging down his bat he started to run from the game. The other shouted indignantly to him. Was the boy quite crazy? But suddenly all the players were alert, too, staring, almost rooted to the spot, watching that helpless, bird-hke thing fluttering as though wounded to the ground. When Noel reached it the aeroplane was lying a crumpled heap on the heather, and he could see a man on his baca, though still strapped in. Noel did not know how hurt bo was, but he was speaking. “ Quick,” he said, and that was all. But Noel knew the danger was that the aeroplane might catch fire. The man must be extricated. Whore wore the others? Where was Lomax? He, was big and strong. “ Quick,” Noel shouted to them. “Come and help.” There was a scramble over the fence. Noel, the slow Noel, had taken command and was being obeyed. There was broken wood to be dragged away, a strap to be cut. Someone had a pocket knife, but it took time to cut through a thick leather strap. The airman hardly spoke, except now and again to say “ Quick.” With his arms he, too, helped, and at last he was free. By this time a few people from neighbouring houses had collected, and before long the airman, whose legs were hurt, was being carried across the cricket ground to the shelter of a cottage. Hardly had they got clear when a flame shot out of the aeroplane, and in a moment it was a great blaze lighting up the gorse and heather. Cricket was continued that dav in rather a different atmosphere. Under the eyes of the players a brave man had nearly perished. And they had something else as well to occupy their minds. Noel Cartwright had another side to his character, and there was not a boy who did not envy Noel’s quick seizing of the situation. After all, was it everything in the world to be good at cricket? It was a fine game, but were not the dreamers sometimes line, too? Noel himself was feeling very surprised about a discovery he had made. Ho had suddenly lost all his fear. He thought he had been thinking far too much about himself. When the aeroplane crashed he had forgotten that there was such a person as Noel Cartwright. He determined that ho would try to forget himself again. It was still his innings; a ball came, and Noel thought only of t,hatball and the boundary. He hit out. “ Oh, well played,” shouted; and as a kind of relief to their feelings with regard to Noel all the others called out “ Welt played, Noel, well played, sir.”